TAB member Danielle

Cooper and Teen

Librarian Advisor Arlene

Garcia at recent TAB

meeting

Friends Newsletter Volume 1, Number 2 Winter, 2007

The Future of Libraries? Look to TAB

‘This can be

working in a

hospital, a

soup kitchen,

an animal

facility or a

library.’

The Friends have come to know theTeen Advisory Board (TAB) largely

because TAB has sent representatives toFriends Board Meetings and because wehave provided funding for them. But asidefrom being teens, who are they? And whatare they?

Teen Advisory Boards are a nationwidephenomenon. But although they arescattered across the country they are notmonolithic. Indeed, just in names alonethere is wide variation. Our FortLauderdale Libraries teen group is called, aswe know, Teen Advisory Board. Somegroups are named Young Adult AdvisoryBoard (YAAB) or Teen Advisory Group(TAG) or Teen Library Council (TLC). Ithink you get the picture.

As libraries come in all types and sizes andconditions so do their Teen AdvisoryBoards. Some have officers and are run likea club, others say leadership is limited toindividuals taking charge of projects. Someare literature oriented, some are programoriented, some are computer oriented. Itdepends on the library, the librarian

advisor, and the teens themselves as towhat their mission and game plan is.

Why do teens join TAB? First, there is apractical reason. In Broward County allhigh school students must commit to 40hours of community service. This can beworking in a hospital, a soup kitchen, ananimal facility or a library – any place thathas a teen volunteer program. Most of theTAB members are students who want togo above and beyond the 40 hours (itreally looks good on transcripts whenapplying for college entrance) and becausethey are committed to giving back to theircommunity.

The Fort Lauderdale Libraries have had aTAB since 1999 when it was establishedby Sydna Wexler, who was a TeenLibrarian and is now Supervisor of YouthServices.

So let’s find out what our TAB is byseeing what they do and what they want todo. Their advisor is Arlene Garcia, MainLibrary Teen Librarian. Maybe Arlenegets her (continued on next page)

‘They want to

comment, want

to post their

own stories,

see their own

art, and

socialize and

interact’

TAB (continued from page one)teen empathy from her teen daughter. In their next meeting TAB will put thefinishing touches on their Geek and NerdsProm, will be listening to Alberto Howewho will speak on Affordable CollegeSolutions (sponsored by the Friends), willstart planning for their Teen SummerProgram, and will take part in knitting(both Guys and Dolls) demonstrations. Let’s take these one at a time. The GeekProm is just what it sounds like. The Teenswill run their own dance. Arlene Garciaacts as a facilitator but the teens do therest. Why Geeks and Nerds? That’s howthey see themselves. They say they’rebookish (bookworms) and studious(scholarly) and not like the rest of theircontemporaries in high schools’ strictsocieties. Later Howe will be offering free three-partworkshops on passing the SATs, a Friendssponsored event. Free is important to teenswho cannot afford Princeton Review orother SAT preparation programs. It’s too early to get deeply into theplanning for the Summer Holiday Programbut you can see that this group likes to doprogramming, not computer programmingbut special events programming. In short,they’re not coming to the library just tostack books. They would like to do fund raising for theFriends. One idea that they used for theNova Library was called Stuck on You. What the teens did was duct tape stuff tostuff and patrons had to pay them to getstuff unstuck. Result: about $300 and agood time was had by all. Now that libraries are as much aural asvisual they have an idea about sellingheadphones in the library – even running acar wash. They would also like tobrainstorm ideas on fund-raising for theFriends. And that gets us to the word intheir title we have not discussed –Advisory. Do they advise? Well, they have

and they’d like to. But advice that’s nottaken is something like the black holes inour universe – they’re there but we can’tsee them. Teens offer the libraries an unequaledview of the future. Any teen who has acomputer at home has access to all thelibrary’s data bases, access to Google –basically access to the world. With all thatavailable why will they come to the library? How about for interaction?

These teens are true products of the ageof information and have moved waybeyond our traditional users. They use cellphones constantly and it almost seems theyinvented text messaging. To today’s teen technology equates tocommunication. They want to advise,want to be able to comment, want to posttheir own stories, see their own art, andsocialize and interact. They even have sortof communications language – chat speak. Is there anything they want from theFriends? Well they would like to meetauthors, sports figures, musicians. Theyappreciate all the funding the Friends dofor them but they’d really like to seeFriends come to more meetings, moreevents. They’d like us to see more of what theydo – to have a partnership in a true senseof the word. Oh yes, and they would liketheir own website. �

First Anime Meeting Changes Look at Main

On Saturday, January 6th, Main Library took on a very, very different look – from thefirst floor auditorium through the Bienes Center and all the way to the eighth floor.

About 1000 teens gathered to celebrate their passion for Anime and Manga at the firstannual Anime Convention.

For those who are not connoisseurs, Anime and Manga are Japanese-style animation andgraphic novels (comic books) respectively. And the teens came in costume – dressed astheir favorite characters – changing Main into an almost otherworldly site.

Arlene Garcia, who set up the event, said: ‘All the kids who came to the convention havea common interest and this made them friendly and open to each other. It was also greatto see the breadth of participation – we had males, females, blacks, whites, Hispanics,Asians – everybody.’ What this did for the library is show youngsters that the library is not just a place forbooks anymore. It’s also a good spot for DVDs, music, video games and special events. ‘And the library isn’t like book stores where youngsters are often kicked out,’ Garcia said. And why are the Friends interested in the first Anime Convention at the Main library? Well, because we sponsored it. �

‘We hadmales,females,blacks,whites,Hispanics,Asians –everybody.’

News and Notes

For several years, the Friends haveprovided a program at the Main

Library for the 5 graders from Bennettth

Elementary school. The event consistsof the following activities:o an interactive program from a local performero a free book related to the performance topico a tour of the Main libraryo a craft activityo snacks and drinks This year School Days @ the Librarywill be held in April, in conjunction withNational Library Week. Additionally,the Friends have added a second schoolthis year – 5 graders from North Sideth

elementary.

Bennett school staff report that the 5th

graders look forward to this event eachyear as one of the rewards of their lastyear in elementary school. Their school library media specialist takes thisopportunity to make sure that studentshave library cards. Many of the childrenhave never been to the Main Library,never mind riding an escalator or lookingat the city from 6 stories up!

�

Late last year Book Fair received twobig collections – one of older medicaland psychiatric books, the other ofexpensive art books. We also received collections of National Geographics. We areselling some of the older copies for adime. We also received some olderspecial editions of Life Magazine, almostall of which sold during the January FirstFridays.

�

In January First Friday was excellentwith sales totaling over $626 – our highest monthly total. A large part ofthis was the sale of the art books but

other subjects were selling well too. Weexperimented with a donations box thistime and made an extra ten bucks.

�

Since July when we first shipped booksto Better World Books, they have sold143 books for a total to us of $167.07. These sales are disappointing and we arereevaluating our involvement. Proceedsfrom November Online Sales were$150.00, so this seems to be a morelucrative avenue than Better WorldBooks.

�

The Florida Library Associations’s FLA Library Day in Tallahassee willbe coming up on March 20. Friends ofthe Broward County Libraries havealways worked with the associationadvocating for our libraries and librariesthroughout the state. If you areinterested in attending contact FriendsVP Barbara Correll at 954-525-1252before March 1 .st

�

We received an interesting old bookcalled T h e A B C o f Sto c k Sp e c u la t io nwritten in 1912. Our copy is a 1989reprint that is in excellent condition. The book was written by SamuelArmstrong Nelson, who was Charles H.Dows’ publisher. Dow was a journalistwho co-founded Dow Jones & Co. withEdward Jones and Charles Bergstresser. Dow also founded The Wall Street Journaland although given credit for the DowJones Index never claimed he inventedit. In fact, he never wrote anythingabout his thoughts on investing. But therecord clearly shows that he was the ideaman behind all of Dow Jones & Co.'sendeavors. Now a readership test! Thefirst Friends member who can get Dow’sbirth date will have the A B C ofSpeculation with our compliments. Call

Maria Munoz at 954-358-7415 �

Volunteeringwith theFriends is agreat way tolearn newskills, meetnew people. have newexperiences. To start callus at 954-357-7415.